The Atlantic is not a medical journal

I feel like I gripe about the health coverage in the New York Times and Slate a lot, and so this morning it is refreshing to have come across a lousy health article in another estimable publication.  This morning’s contender for the “correlation ≠ causation” booby prize is the venerable Atlantic.

To wit:

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic studied 926 people in Minnesota between the ages of 70 and 93. They had them fill out questionnaires about the kinds of physical activities they engaged in, including aerobics, strength training, yoga, hiking, swimming, and others. They also asked the participants about how often they took part in mentally stimulating activities, like playing games, reading, play music, arts and crafts, and using the computer. The team was particularly interested in computer use, given its prevalence across all generations.

It turns out that both exercise and computer use each have protective effects – but the two together are even better. Of the people who neither exercised nor used a computer, about 20 percent had normal cognition, and almost 37 percent had mild cognitive impairment. But people who used computers and exercised regularly were in much better shape: 36 percent were cognitively normal, while only 18 percent had MCI. [emphasis wearily added here and below]

No.  Nothing of the sort “turns out.”  It turns out that a higher percentage of older people who both used computers and exercised were cognitively normal by the study’s measure than similar people who did neither.  The study does not mean that those activities have protective effects.  It is quite likely that patients who are suffering from cognitive decline are simply less apt to use the computer or exercise.  The study did not follow people over time to determine their long-term habits, it sent them a questionnaire asking what they do now.

How is it that the author, who apparently holds a PhD in biopsychology (a field with which I am sadly unfamiliar), so grossly overstates the study’s findings?  She then goes on to undermine her own premise.

The study does not actually show cause and effect — there could be another variable at play — but it does hint at the idea that keeping cognitively active might somehow protect the brain, as earlier studies have also suggested. Exercise has been shown time and time again to reduce the risk for cognitive decline and even help reverse symptoms once they start. Keeping the brain engaged whether on the computer or off it also can’t be a bad activity to get into.

Aiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

If the study does not show cause and effect, then why did you not two paragraphs before report that it did?  Can the Atlantic not drum up a health and science writer capable of writing a measured and coherent piece that does not contradict itself?

As I alluded in my piece for the Inequality Symposium, the popular media are just chock full of this kind of ridiculous over-reporting.  It contributes to a steady hum in the background of our lives, where every blessed thing we do has been given a set of healthcare ramifications to consider.  It’s the grown-up equivalent of toys that are meant to make your kid smarter, rather than simply giving her something fun to play with.  (Who would waste their money on something so useless?)  Nothing is sufficient in itself any longer, but must be justified by also being good for you.

Do I think exercise is good for you?  You bet.  Would I like to believe that noodling around the computer is good for my brain?  Sure.  I like to spend (rather a lot of) time thus occupied, and it would be a lovely little fillip to tell myself that I’m not wasting precious hours of my life but actually Staving Off Mental Decline.  Is that mealy-mouthed statement above, with which the author concludes her penultimate paragraph, likely true?  Undoubtedly it is better to stay engaged in life than to withdraw from it, be it through shuffleboard or cribbage or Words with Friends.  I hardly think it needs reporting.

But rather than feel the need to fill their “health and wellness” sections with foolish little pieces like this, I would rather these publications spare us all the bother and only report on medical findings when there’s something worth saying.  Content for its own sake does nobody any favors, even if you’re old and you’re reading about it online.